New Federal Database To Aid Search For Deadbeat Parents

September 22, 1997|By N.Y. Times News Service

WASHINGTON — Enforcement of child support obligations enters a new era next week, when the federal government will start operating a computerized directory showing every person newly hired by every employer in the country so federal and state investigators can track down parents who owe money to their children.

States will be able to use the directory to locate parents and dun them, typically by securing court orders to employers to deduct child support from wages and salaries.

Keeping track of parents who move from state to state is one of the most difficult tasks in collecting child support, officials say. More than 30 percent of the 19 million child support cases involve parents who do not live in the same state as their children.

President Clinton will soon announce the National Directory of New Hires, which is required by the 1996 welfare law.

But the directory is not just for welfare recipients. It will record basic information, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers and wages, for everyone hired after Oct. 1 for a full- or part-time job by an employer of any size.

It will be one of the largest, most up-to-date files of personal information kept by the government. Michael Kharfen, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the government expected to receive data on 60 million newly hired employees a year.

Wages must be reported every three months; the government expects to receive 160 million wage reports each quarter.

The size and scope of the database have raised concerns about the potential for intrusions on privacy.

Federal and state officials predict that the new federal directory, combined with similar directories in all states, will produce billions of dollars in new child support payments. States like New York, Virginia, Texas and Missouri, which have required the reporting of newly hired workers in the last few years, say the procedure has been extremely helpful in locating absent parents.

Virginia has required the reporting of all newly hired employees since 1993. Patricia Addison, manager of operations for the state's child support program, said, ``We've found it an invaluable tool.''

The state of Virginia is routinely informed whenever a person takes a new job. By contrast, Addison said, in the past, ``the only way we found out that the father had changed jobs is that the child support payments stopped.''